


Oct. 9th, “There Is A Certain Taste To It.”

by Morpheus626



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25061509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: A Fictober 2019 piece about the...interesting food available to Sledge, Snafu, and the rest of K Company.Warnings: descriptions of nasty food, maggot-infested bread. Nothing overtly explicit is mentioned, and it isn’t like a four paragraph description of things like that or anything, but if even brief mentions of stuff like this aren’t your jam to read about, then maybe skip this one.
Kudos: 3





	Oct. 9th, “There Is A Certain Taste To It.”

There were a number of emotions one could ascribe to the look on Eugene’s face as he sipped the broth of the canned stew they’d been given for dinner. Disgust, sadness, disappointment, a little bit of fear. Nothing that made anyone else eager to dig in.

“What do you think it actually is?” Burgin asked, sloshing the bits of maybe meat around in the broth. 

“Do we really wanna know? Gotta try and eat it anyway,” Snafu remarked as he opened his can and retched at the scent. “…or could just drink the broth this time around.” 

Eugene shook his head. “Just as bad as the meat probably is. There is…a certain taste to it.” 

Burgin sipped from his, and spat it back out immediately. “I think…lemme put it this way. I don’t know what piss tastes like, but if I had to presume what it might taste like, I think it’s probably just like this broth.” 

“We have to try and eat somethin’,” Snafu tried again, bringing the can close to his face, but the longer he looked at the stew the more disgusted of a look he wore. They tried hard to eat no matter what, and make pretend everything was appetizing, but there were limits. 

“True,” Eugene said glumly. “What about the bread?” 

“Awful lot of…’protein’ on it,” Burgin raised his piece of bread where they all could see it, and shook maggots off of it. 

“…or not,” Eugene replied. “What I wouldn’t give for just a normal piece of bread. No maggots, no mold, just…good bread.” 

“A hamburger made of easily identifiable meat,” Burgin sighed as he peered miserably at the can in his hands.

“My mama makes a seafood stew that’d knock your socks off,” Snafu said, setting his can down and flicking maggots off of his bread as he tried to pull edible chunks from it. 

“Tell her to send us a care package with the broth from her stew. Even just that’d be amazing. Probably make us sick, to eat decent food after having this stuff for so long,” Burgin told him. 

Private Kathy strolled past them, a few empty cans of stew stacked in one hand. “You guys eatin’ yours? Nobody seems to want ‘em, so I’m taking them off everybody’s hands and some extra dinner. If you want…I can make those disappear.” 

Snafu wordlessly handed over his can, and watched as Private Kathy dug in, happily sipping the broth and chewing far too long on the mystery meat. 

“What’s the meat taste like?” he finally asked him, a slightly disgusted look on his face. 

Private Kathy shrugged. “Not bad. Broth is great though.” 

The three of them shared a concerned glance before passing over Eugene and Burgin’s cans to Kathy, who thanked them and continued on towards another group of soldiers, chewing away as he went. 

“Jesus Christ. He’s gonna preserve himself eatin’ that shit before anyone even gets a chance to shoot him. If he dies, we could dig him up a year later, and that broth’ll still be warm in his veins,” Burgin muttered. 

At that, they broke out into giggles, morbid a joke as it was. Morbid no longer mattered, surrounded by death. It made the bread no easier to stomach, or the meal period feel any shorter, but laughter still helped a bit.


End file.
